


into the spiderverse

by flydunes



Series: spiderkook [1]
Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types, 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Spider-Man Fusion, Anxiety, Jeon Jungkook Is a Dork, Jungkook is Spider-Man, Kim Seokjin | Jin & Kim Taehyung | V Are Siblings, Kim Seokjin | Jin Is a Chaotic Gremlin, M/M, Minor Violence, New York, Not Canon Compliant, Potential Spoilers for Spider-Man PS4, Secret Identity, Secret Identity Fail, Spider-Man - Freeform, aunt may is pure and i love her, hyung line are all friends, inspired by most modern spider-man iterations, maknae line are all friends, tony stark is here also?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2019-09-29 06:29:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17198291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flydunes/pseuds/flydunes
Summary: web after web, jeongguk was propelled through the bustling streets of new york, smiling inwardly at the various shouts and screams- "it's spider-man! oh my god!" - and having to really focus on where he was going.navigating new york wasn't easy, not from the air, where buildings started to blur into one another and blocks looked the same, leaving jeongguk to have to keep an eye out for little telling spots on buildings so he could tell them apart. it was getting close to dark out and he needed a safe spot to perch for just a couple of hours to listen to the radio, do some homework, and chill the hell out. being spider-man was tough work, especially while balancing college and a social life, having barely enough time for himself.-or, where jeongguk becomes spider-man, and tries and fails to protect his identity around his friends.





	1. issue #1 - origin story

**Author's Note:**

> yeah this is pretty self-indulgent whoops
> 
> i have to explain something quickly- jeongguk is aunt may's nephew by marriage, as peter parker is in canon. uncle ben is peter parker's dad's brother so i made this so in this fic. jeongguk's mother is korean, so he's korean-american. also i have to warn you that i am a big spider-nerd, but have taken extreme liberties with the storyline, however, it has major plot elements inspired by spider-man ps4, so spoilers for that storyline. i also have elements from homecoming and as of the epilogue, far from home
> 
> this is non-beta'd!

"hey, taehyung! wait up, man!" jeongguk jeon yelled, jogging up to his best friend, who was currently speedwalking to the bus outside the school gates. 

"sorry gguk," taehyung kim replied as he stopped, shifting from foot to foot, "i'm just excited! we're going to oscorp! oscorp, jeonggukie!"

"i get it man, chill," the younger laughed, "but you probably won't see any superheroes. they're not a management company- leave that up to stark industries and the damage control."

"but this place is said to be developing new means to make genetically enhanced superheroes! imagine if we had more heroes like captain america! fighting for the good of the world and looking fabulous while doing it!" taehyung grinned. "or- apparently they might have genetically enhanced heroes who look completely normal but have things like super strength and super speed! it'll change the dynamic of superheroes forever! all these modern heroes are brawns over brain and just rushing into battle but the new people would have to think about their actions because one hit could take them down!'

jeongguk and taehyung boarded the bus and found a seat together behind their best friend jimin park. jeongguk frowned. "listen man, yeah it could change fighting forever, but what's wrong with the current formula? damage control has the damage controlled- ba dum tss- and it works, like, with the shiitari- brawn was kinda the only way to win because they were so strong offensively that they had to take them out really quickly. sitting around devising a plan would have just taken more lives than it already did."

"ooh, are you two debating heroes again?" jimin interrupted, turning in his seat (much to the chagrin of the girl sitting next to him) and smiling. "don't you realise ggukie? the avengers are both brain and brawn, they came up with strategies on the go. yeah, they had to use brawn, that's the entire point of the hulk, but heroes like black widow and hawkeye who aren't that strong physically do have to come up with on-the-fly plans in order to save the day."

"exactly, thank you jimin!" taehyung exclaimed, "being a hero isn't just running in and punching everything that moves, but these potential new genetic super-soldiers with lower defenses in order to blend in and make their opponents second-guess them would have to really plan out their method of attack before running in and then punching everything that moves- the point of these heroes is to stop the big baddie before the big baddie can do major harm like the shiitari did! like if they had planned out the capture of loki and not letting him get into their brains before getting him and improvising then the new york incident would never have happened! i bet these new heroes would be for smaller-scale things, like cities under threat, not the entire planet or, god forbid, universe."

jeongguk nodded, and jimin giggled. "you really know your stuff, taetae," jimin said with a smirk.

"yeah well, jin talks a lot about this sorta stuff, being an intern at stark and all. i get a lot of information from him, stuff that wouldn't normally be disclosed to the public. he hears gossip at work," taehyung sighed. "maybe i know too much about this stuff."

**\--**

three hours later and taehyung was officially off his rocker. he had nearly fainted just walking into the oscorp building, not to mention his 'tiny' freakout when norman osborn met the group of students personally- "norman! i mean, mr.osborn! i'm such a big, big fan, i love your work so much, sir! i'm just so overwhelmed, it's really you, oh god, can i get an internship? or a signature?"- before bursting into tears that hadn't stopped, even as they sat out in the lawns out the front of the high-rise building for lunch.

jeongguk ate his sandwich calmly, talking to jimin about their observations and answers for the handout sheet they were given on the bus on the way to the venue. he had an eyebrow raised at taehyung, who still had tears leaking from his eyes, not taking them off the oscorp building. he wasn't eating, claiming he wouldn't be able to keep any food down. 

"i think he might be happy to be here," jimin said idly, slightly muffled around the lollipop he had jammed into his mouth as soon as he could. the kid had a sweet tooth, that was for sure. 

"you could say that again," jeongguk remarked, "he could end up having kittens if he sees another funky machine."

jimin laughed, a tinkling sound, and jeongguk smiled to himself. taehyung, as if seeing his two best friends for the first time, scooted over to them and wiped his eyes.

"i wanna sneak into their top secret rooms," he whispered conspiratorially, to which jimin and jeongguk gasped. 

"you can't do that!" jimin whisper-yelled back, taking surreptitious glances at the rest of the school group to make sure no one was listening. "if you're caught- which you most certainly will be- you could be in such deep shit!"

taehyung pouted. "but they're not mentioning anything about their bioengineered super-soldiers! i wanna know if it's not just a rumour!"

"tae, it'd top secret for a reason,' jeongguk whispered firmly. "maybe the project isn'tsafe for the public yet, or needs specifically maintained environments! jimin's right, tae, you'd never be able to go on an excursion again, maybe you'd be expelled! you could even be in trouble with the law!"

"oh come on, guys! i'm a teenager! in the prime of my trouble-causing life! i'm outta this school in a couple of months, where's the harm in a little risk?" taehyung whined, and jimin and jeongguk shared a worried glance. 

"taehyung" jimin said, "it's not a good idea. i'm not doing it, or helping you in any way."

"neither am i," jeongguk affirmed, "you're on your own, buddy."

the three sat in an uncomfortable silence for the remainder of lunchtime, only jeongguk and jimin looking at each other, silently communicating. taehyung had his back turned to them and was looking up at the oscorp building again. when the teacher called for the students to reassemble, jimin and jeongguk resolved to keep their eyes on taehyung at all times. 

**\--**

"and this is our biology research lab," the tour guide announced to the group, "where we take blood samples of various animals to see the effects of said blood against various types of cells, including but not limited to; immune, respiratory, muscle and reproductive. mainly we do cancer research but we also have, and you'll have to keep your mouths shut about this, top secret factions."

jeongguk sneaked a glance to taehyung, who had his hand raised. the tour guide pointed to him. "do you have a question, young man?"

"yeah, um, is it true that you guys are testing bioengineered in there- or anywhere, in this facility?" taehyung asked, and jeongguk could feel his heart beating faster. jimin elbowed him in the ribs softly, his own face pale and concerned.

the tour guide, however, chuckled. "we aren't stark industries, young man, we don't have the legal permission to do such a thing!"

jeongguk could tell his wording was vague.

the group moved along the hallway to a doorway with a radioactive symbol on it. the tour guide stopped them all. "this is our radioactive testing facility. the workers in here have very special hazmat suits to protect themselves when the radioactive activities are activated- you can go into this room safely unless the light here is turned on. the equipment in here works a lot like x-rays or ct scans!" he explained, "how about we go inside? i'll show you all our specialty equipment!"

the students, including jeongguk, nodded enthusiastically. the tour guide reached for his staff card and touched it to the censor by the door. the door slid open with a slight hiss, but the group was stopped short by a slightly frantic worker running out of the room.

"hey, kids! we've had a, uh, breakout, of our latest test subjects in the biology research lab, i'm just spreading the word," he panted, and everyone in the group looked at each other, concerned. "we're ordering an evacutation of this corridor, and, uh, please, on your way out? look down around your feet, if you will."

the tour guide nodded calmly and set the group back off down the corridor. the group were whispering frantically, panicking a little at the prospect of dangerous subjects roaming free.

"do you think it's a radioactive animal of some sort?" a blonde girl behind jeongguk, jimin and taehyung whispered to her friend. taehyung turned around, walking backwards.

"i reckon it is, to genetically enhance super-soldiers!" he whispered back, and the girl blanched.

"i don't wanna be a super-soldier! i just wanna finish school and be a biologist! being a hero would be too much work, don't you think?" she said rather pompously, and her friend nodded.

they reached the end of the corridor, and true to the other worker's word, checked around their feet looking for anything unusual before leaving the contained area. 

everyone milled around the lobby while the tour guide figured out their new plan. jeongguk, jimin and taehyung had picked up their argument from lunch. 

"i wanna see if i can get in!" taehyung hissed, and jeongguk shook his head. 

"it's too late, they've got the area quarantined." as he spoke, he could see workers taping off the area to prevent anyone from going in until the situation was resolved. 

"i'll say that i lost something," taehyung said, his eyebrows furrowing together in his anger. 

it was jimin's turn to shake his head. "they'll send in someone to retrieve it and realise you're bluffing, or tell you it's too bad, you'll get it back after the quarantine is lifted."

taehyung pouted, but stayed still nonetheless. luckily, his next outburst on the tip of his tongue was delayed by the tour guide gathering the students and setting off towards the greenhouses in the lawns at the back of the building.

"yikes, this lot's big," jimin marvelled, "to be able to have yards in an inner-city building! and greenhouses!"

"yeah," jeongguk agreed, "must be expensive for osborn."

"he kind of is one of the richest men in new york," jimin said. "i bet it was no skin off his back."

taehyung remained silent. 

when the group went into the greenhouse, jeongguk was confronted with a blast of the hottest heat he'd ever experienced. it was sweltering in the glass room, but it must have been good for the rows upon rows of brilliantly green, leafy plants. he could feel sweat immediately build on his face and neck, and he rolled up his sleeves. jimin took off his blazer and shoved it in his backpack unceremoniously. taehyung, who had been wearing just his short-sleeved shirt, stretched his neck as if it was cramping. 

"it's a little hot in here," the tour guide remarked unhelpfully, to the giggles of most students. "but it has to be kept at a constant humidity level of one hundred percent and one hundred and four degrees farhrenheit. it's best for the plants, you see, which form the components of some of our medicines and organic herbalism." he pointed to a plant with white flowers drooping to the floor. it didn't look very healthy, in jeogguk's opinion, and it must have shown in his and other's faces, because the tour guide chuckled. "it's meant to look like this! it's called a galanthus, or snowdrop. its galantamine is useful in the treatment of alzheimer's disease- it's not a cure, but a treatment to alleviate and postpone symptoms!"

he walked down the row and through a column lined by willowy trees. a short, rather underwhelming plant with yellow balls as flowers sat a little beyond the entrance. "this is the santolina chamaecyparissus, or cotton lavender. its leaves are used to expel intestinal parasites. it's native to the mediterranean region, so this hot, humid heat is perfect for its climate."

"you're free to walk around, by the way, as long as you don't touch anything. however, there are a group of jasmines towards the back that you're free to eat the stamen of! they're the small white ones trained up the wall- just talk to the workers around the area! they're quite delicious- if you've ever had jasmine tea or have some essential oils lying around the place then you might know this to be true."

jimin, jeongguk and taehyung, having forgotten their argument in lieu of admiring the plants around them, walked around the place and made idle conversation, mainly about how hot it was and how heavy the scent in the air was due to the various flowers. they continually had to slap off mosquitos and flies, and the occasional spider as they weaved their way through plants they'd never even seen before, various workers telling them about plants native to other continents. jeongguk's favourite was the kangaroo paw, a red plant with odd hand-shaped flowers, native to australia and hardy enough to survive the many habitats available in the region. jimin teased him for only liking it because of the name, but how could he talk when his favourite was the carnation, purely because of the meme. some plants were held off in separate rooms with other temperature and humidity controls, which was where taehyung found his favourite blue star, with lavender-ish star-shaped flowers in a dense bush. claiming he wanted to paint them later, he took a picture before leaving the room and venturing back into the hot room, where they shortly stumbled upon the aforementioned jasmines, they tried the stamen, but jimin found it was too bitter for his tastes and resolved to sticking another lollipop in his mouth. taehyung plucked one of the flowers, wishing he could make flower arrangements, before crushing the whole flower in his mouth. jeongguk widened his eyes at taehyung's act of bravery, having contented himself with a few snacks before heckling jimin for his own lollipop. 

they stood and talked more for a while, standing by the jasmines, before a worker struck up a conversation about the flowers found in the greenhouse with the boys. midway through hearing about a failed growth of pear cacti, which had run rampant and become a hard-to-remove pest for several years, jeongguk felt a sharp sting on the back of his hand. he looked down, to find a black spider clinging to his skin. not being afraid of spiders, he smacked his other hand down and shook off the dead arachnid. a small lump swelled on the bite, and he shrugged. he felt fine, so he wasn't concerned. the worker they were talking to looked at him, an odd expression on his face, before looking away when he met jeongguk's eyes. 

**\--**

jimin, taehyung and jeongguk had completely forgotten to fill out their excursion form and thus were crammed into jeongguk's small bedroom the next day, a saturday, filling questions that they didn't consider while at oscorp. taehyung had apologised to his two best friends after the excursion the day prior, to which the two immediately forgave him, knowing he wouldn't like to be further lectured. they had gone back to normal, currently working hard at answering the responses to the sheet.

"okay, question twelve; sketch a drawing, including a biological diagram, of one of the notable plants you found in the emily lyman medicinal greenhouse," jimin read out, frowning. "i hardly remember what the carnation looked like, much less the biological shit! d'you reckon they'd realise if i traced something from the internet?"

jeongguk shrugged. "i'll do that, the flowers of the kangaroo paw are hard to draw, and i don't even know how the insides would look. maybe i could draw a jasmine? if taehyung didn't eat the whole flowers we'd be able to dissect it."

taehyung poked his tongue out. "losers! i took a picture!"

"yeah, 'cause you wanted to paint it, not because you predicted the future or anything," jimin teased, and taehyung pouted. he turned his back, but the two could see his shoulders shaking so they knew he wasn't genuinely hurt. 

jimin and jeongguk decided to risk copying diagrams from google, while taehyung ever so carefully sketched the blue star and guessing what the inside would look like because he, like jimin and jeongguk, had no idea. they stayed quiet like this for fifteen minutes, the only noises coming from the hiphop jeongguk had playing on his phone and the scratching of pencil against the paper. a knock sounded on the door, and jeongguk called out, "come in!"

jeongguk's aunt may poked her head around the door, and smiled. "i've got lunch ready for you boys when you're ready, just some simple stir-fry."

jeongguk grinned. "thanks may. we'll be out in a second."

the door shut with a snap as aunt may retreated back into the living room of the small apartment. the three boys finished their sketches and left jeongguk's cramped room, into the equally as cramped living room and kitchen where a delicious-smelling stir-fry awaited them. aunt may was nursing her own bowl, eyes glued to the television where a news broadcast describing the test subject escape at oscorp was playing.

"... where oscorp workers assure that the wider public is safe. norman osborn himself declined to give more information as to the purpose of the top secret biological research facility or what the breach itself was, describing the incident as a 'small accident that was swiftly taken care of'. osborn disclosed that the subject was found elsewhere in the building with no further incidents or reports of injuries within a matter of hours."

aunt may blanched. "that was the thing that happened yesterday, right?" she asked, bowlful of noodles forgotten. jeongguk patted her shoulder from where he stood behind the couch. 

"it's okay, may, we got out safely. nothing happened to us. i bet it was some sort of mouse or something, the worker told us to check the floor when we left." he assured her. he took a bite of the stir-fry. "ah, this is really good, is this last night's pork belly?"

"we're really fine, may," jimin piped up, "we'd let you know if something happened." taehyung nodded, his mouth too full of noodles to contribute to the conversation.

aunt may sighed. "honestly, letting kids go into high-security corridors, where they could be hurt! what kind of place is this?"

"you signed the permisson form, may," jeongguk chuckled, "it said on the note to be wary of incidents like this, because it is what oscorp does- biological tests on potentially dangerous subjects."

aunt may turned her head owlishly and glared at jeongguk with narrowed eyes. "you know i don't read those notes, jeongguk jeon, and don't give me that sass."

jimin giggled.

the news bulletin ended and started to play some boring gameshow that jeongguk had no interest in, that he knew aunt may loved, so he dropped the subject, laughing to himself. taehyung finished his lunch first and declared he was going to get a headstart on the next few questions. jimin, ever the petty bitch, exclaimed in protest before shovelling food in his mouth to be able to do the work faster than taehyung. within a minute, he was zooming back into jeongguk's bedroom. jeongguk sighed, and took the last few bites, before taking aunt may's empty bowl, and putting them in the kitchen. 

but he couldn't get the stacked bowls out of his hand. or rather, they didn't want to leave his hand, as though stuck there with superglue. he shook his hand, and other than rattling violently, the bowls didn't move.

"oh god," he muttered, "what the fuck is happening. what the fuck is this, what the fuck."

"you a'ight?" aunt may called, not taking her eyes of the television screen. 

jeongguk's instincts told him to play cool. "yeah," he called back, his voice cracking somewhat, "i'm just getting seconds to take into my room!"

"okay," came aunt may's response. jeongguk exhaled, knowing he was safe, as long as he didn't make much more noise and actually took seconds into his room. with his mind distracted with the thoughts of a plan, his hand relaxed, and the bowls slid from his grasp and almost crashed into the sink.

it was as if he was viewing the world in slow motion- aunt may was mid-laugh, the sound coming distorted and slow, the beep of a car taking far too long, and the bowls were slipping, falling, into the sinks. in order to not make any more noise he caught them without thinking about how the world suddenly went slow. upon contact with his other hand, the world righted itself and everything resumed at normal speed. jeongguk relaxed his hand to make the bowls unstick and placed one in the sink, spooning more stir-fry into the other. he collected two more forks and took them into his room.

"uh, here," he said, putting the bowl on his bedside table. "i gotta go to the bathroom."

he retreated into the bathroom, the dodgy yellow light casting his face into shadow from his reflection in the mirror. he looked at his hands, and to the spiderbite he recieved the prior day. "did i...?" he muttered to himself, before touching a soap bottle next to the sink. as predicted, it stuck to his hand, and upon relaxing it, he was able to hold it normally without it sticking. he replaced it into its spot. he sat on the closed toilet, his head in his hands. he had to think rationally. 

a biological test subject escaped, he got bitten by a spider later that day, now he had funky powers, almost like that... of a spider. he groaned softly. he had been bitten by a bioengineered spider and now he could do whatever that spider could. what the fuck. he wondered if he could weave a web like a spider- would it come out of his ass too? jeongguk laughed softly to himself. that would be fucking weird. weirder than a spider altering his dna to be capable of having things stick to him and having incredible reflexes. he sighed, the smile slippin goff his face.

what was he going to do?

his mind repeated what the blonde girl had said yesterday- "being a hero would be too much work, don't you think?" he furrowed his brow and thought about what he would do if he was now a superhero of sorts. would he hide it, pretend it didn't exist and go on with his life? or would he now be morally required to save the city, or the world, or the entire universe? what if he died, what if aunt may was hurt, or jimin- or taehyung? taehyung was far too into superheroes to use common sense in the event of meeting one, he'd freak out and follow them like a lost puppy, asking them unending questions and getting into trouble, possibly being hurt... 

jeongguk, for the first time in months, thought about his old uncle ben. sweet old ben- he'd been murdered when going on a late night drive to the store for milk. he never tried to think abou tit too much, it hurt his chest. jeongguk thought about one of the last things ben had said to him- "with great power comes great responsibility." his eyes filled with tears. could he have known...? 

no, he couldn't've, jeongguk thought to himself. he wasn't psychic. it had been during a conversation about osborn, stark, and other prominent scientists making headway in earth's technologies. "with great power comes great responsibility," uncle ben had said, "these men have all the power in the world. it's up to them what they do with it. do you take the path of osborn and use your knowledge to assist people, or do you take the path of stark and train other people to assist people? it's all up to you."

wiping his eyes, jeongguk frowned. he had a big decision to make.

after a few minutes sitting down and thinking through his situation rationally, he returned to his room, where taehyung and jimin were working on the worksheet, the bowl of stir-fry already empty. they looked up as jeongguk entered the room and plopped on his bed, deciding to work hard to distract himself.

"why'd you take so long? wank session?" jimin asked and taehyung sniggered. "we don't care if you did, but couldn't you wait till we were gone?"

"haha, very funny," jeongguk deadpanned, answering a question of why bioengineering could have the potential of being incredibly dangerous to the wider population. "i just needed a quiet few minutes."

**\--**

a few hours later, long after jimin and taehyung had left, jeongguk lay in his bed, staring up at the darkness that enveloped his room. he raised his hand, barely being able to see it. he sighed.

"i probably can't spin a web," he muttered to himself, before falling asleep.

he was, however, interrupted, somewhere near three o'clock in the morning, by a pounding headache. he awoke with a gasp, and turned onto his side, seizing his head. he squeezed his eyes shut, a few tears leaking out in pain. "oh god," he groaned quietly, not wanting to wake aunt may a few doors down from his room. he took a few deep breaths and reached for the lamp on his bedside table, in the process knocking the abandoned bowl next to it, which had previously been filled with stir-fry. the forks clattered to the ground first, followed by the dull thud of the bowl hitting carpet. upon impact, jeongguk cried out.

the dull thud was thousands of times louder than it needed to be, the clanking of the forks falling on top of each other magnified to an ear-splitting amount. was he having an anxiety attack? he hadn't had one in so long, but he didn't remember having migraines to this degree when he did have one.

but when focusing his hearing to anything other than the echoes of thuds and clangs still emanating from the bowl and cutlery, he realised how much else he could hear. he could hear the beeping of a car horn, some couple of hundred metres away, a clicking of a pedestrian crossing, the ringing of the 24/7 convenience store door down the road. and was he always able to hear aunt may's snores? he snored very quietly, jeongguk knew, from the times she had passed out on the couch from overwork and exhaustion back when they had lost uncle ben. not loudly enough to be heard through several walls. if he strained his ears, he could hear the clattering of a train several blocks down, and the scream of a woman alongside the cackling of a man. jeongguk's heart gave a thud, wanting to help the woman, but he was in so much pain, his head still throbbing like it would burst, that he couldn't move. and what would he do anyway? he couldn't run fast enough to get there in several seconds. yes, he was a black belt in karate, but in a real, uninhibited fight with a crook who played dirty? no way would he come out of it unscathed. not to mention his window latch was sticky and creaky, enough so to wake up aunt may, ruling out any escape through there.

eventually his headache went away onhis own, but he could still hear everything with incredible clarity. it was too loud for him to be able to fall asleep, so he lay in the dark trying to focus his ears on different sounds, learning the capabilities of this newfound super-hearing. eventually he was able to pick up the bowl and place it back on the bedside table without having waves of pain from the extremely amplified sound. soon after, the sun was beginning to rise and it was too late for him to be able to go back to sleep, not that he could in any case. 

he listened to the sounds of aunt may waking up and tottering around her room, preparing for the day. he reached for his phone, the lockscreen revealing a few texts from taehyung sent back at midnight.

**tae ; 12:04 am**  
ggukie, are you okay?

**tae; 12:04 am**  
you seemed really quiet after the bathroom, something wasn't right with you

**tae ; 12:04 am**  
was it your anxiety?

**tae ; 12:05 am**  
say the word and i'll sneak out to give you cuddles 

**tae; 12:05 am**  
if you're nice about it i'll even get chocolate from the convenience store

**tae ; 12:08 am**  
oh, right, you're a granny who sleeps early, goodnight, sleep tight! -3-

**gguk ; 7:32 am**  
i'm fine, but thanks 

**gguk ; 7:32 am**  
i've just had a big few days, you know how i am. i needed a minute to catch up to myself

**gguk ; 7:33 am**  
oh, right, you're a bear who sleeps in until the afternoon, goodnight, sleep tight! -3-

**gguk ; 7:37**  
also the chocolate would be great, can you deliver it to my door? k thanks bye

jeongguk rolled his eyes, smiling to himself. he locked his phone, the click ringing a little bit before he remembered to make it sound relatively normal. being able to control his hearing was definitely the weirdest thing about the spider powers. unless it turned out that he could spin webs from his ass, he doubted anything would be able to be weirder than hearing things several blocks away. he just had to remember to constantly have his ears closed off to ultra-sensitive objects close to him. no sweat. 

his ears already hurt, but he figured with use he'd be able to get over it. 

**\--**

going back to school on monday was a horrific affair. jeongguk could hear every conversation held in the entire school, not to mention the uncaring kids that screamed at random intervals. he had a headache the entire day, deciding to stuff in his earphones and listen to some video game songs to try and drown everything out. it worked somewhat, definitely alleviating his headache for the most part, but also had questions from jimin and taehyung. he quickly mentioned needing a few minutes to himself, to which his best friends immediately understood and started talking amongst themselves, knowing that jeongguk liked to just listen to people talk sometimes. 

he walked to the train station after school talking to jimin and taehyung- the streets were somewhat better because he could at least tune in to the breeze whistling softly around them and the wooshing of cars several blocks away. however, when they arrived at the train station, jeongguk felt the full force of the volume around him- the many trains thundering past them blocked the atmospheric ambience and the chattering of people brushing past in, talking directly in his ear made him unable to block everything out. he crouched down, his head between his arms. jimin cried out and knelt down next to him.

"please, jimin," jeongguk cried, his own voice thundering in his ears, "i need quiet. i just need quiet."

"let's go then," jimin whispered, his voice still easily heard over the noise of the train station. "we'll walk, yeah, we'll walk home."

he and taehyung took both of his hands and rubbed reassuring patterns into them as they walked out of the train station and to a quiet alleyway down the road. jeongguk sighed.

"you've never been this bad," taehyung said quietly, and jeongguk shuddered.

"i've never felt this bad- i could hear everything, it was so loud..." jeongguk whispered, his arms wrapped tightly around his body. 

"not to mention you look like you haven't slept in days, gukkie," jimin sighed. "is it a relapse?"

jeongguk shrugged. taehyung looked to the exit of the alleyway. "let's get some decent noise-blocking earphones. it might help."

walking back out into the street, they made their way several blocks away to the convenience store near jeongguk's apartment. he focused again on blocking out most of the noise, aided by jimin's reassuring hand in his. jimin's thumb brushed lightly against the two slightly raised lumps on his hand where the spider had bitten him. "the swelling's gone down a bunch," jimin mumbled, "should be faded really soon."

jeongguk looked at his feet trudging down the stained pavement. he couldn't tell taehyung or jimin, they'd be too worried or heckle him too hard about his new found powers- and if he did decide to become a hero, they could become a liability and enemies could figure that out- they'd be in too much danger. realistically, most of his headache had gone away, but he needed to keep the major attack up to not confuse his best friends. just for a little longer, until he got home and could sit in his room and think. 

plus he was always happy to be holding hands with either of his friends. they provided so much comfort to him, even if he was feeling somewhat decent already.

jimin stayed with jeongguk while taehyung went in and bought a pair of expensive noise-blocking earphones and earplugs, knowing jeongguk would want complete silence in order to fall asleep. while waiting for the elder to come out, jeongguk found himself fidgeting nonstop, not able to hold still. his reflexes were going crazy, reacting to every fly that buzzed past his ear and jumping at a cat in a dumpster nearby as it happened- his reactions were perfect, almost as if he could predict what was going to happen as they did.

later, when jeongguk was back in his small, yet peaceful bedroom, with his earplugs in and nursing a plate of lasagna courtesy of aunt may, he thought about the unending support that his friends gave him and how willing to drop everything in order to help him. he felt a surge of warmth as he remembered the hug they had given him when they dropped him at home, despite being blocks away from their own. how aunt may whisked him off to have a hot shower and patted his head as he mumbled that he wasn't feeling well. everyone loved him, and he wanted to return that favour as best he could.

he'd made his decision.


	2. issue #2 - trials and tribulations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it turns out that the crime-fighting is pretty easy- but what is not easy is keeping his identity hidden in front of his friends, family, and, uh, crush. just a teeny, tiny, insignificant crush.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apparently i can write a full chapter in barely three days. enjoy nerds :)
> 
> EDITED ON 1ST MAY: removing inconsistencies and plot holes

web after web, jeongguk was propelled through the bustling streets of new york, smiling inwardly at the various shouts and screams- "it's spider-man! oh my god!"- and having to really focus on where he was going.

navigating new york, not from the air, where buildings started to blur into one another and blocks looked the same, leaving jeongguk to have to keep an eye out for little telling spots so that he could distinguish them from each other. it was getting dark out and he needed a safe spot to perch for just a few hours to listen to the radio, do some homework, and chill the hell out. being spider-man was tough work, especially while balancing college and a social life, having barely enough time for himself.

he found a familiar rooftop, his apartment complex, and lightly landed, stretching his sore legs before plonking down and sitting cross-legged, webbing his previously abandoned backpack to him and pulling out his moral studies homework.

"oh-kay, need to get some work done," he muttered to himself. 

so jeongguk sat there in the failing light for a few hours, listening to the police line for anything worth interrupting his homework for, and writing his essay on the ethics behind media manipulation of public figures, specifically, superheroes.

lately he had received some bad press from the wretched daily bugle for failing to apprehend some very sneaky crooks. the most they had done was steal a few packets of instant ramen and cans of coca-cola, leading him to believe that it was just a bunch of poor college students trying to tough out the rising rent of new york just to get some good education. he further decided not to pursue the crooks when his two best friends bragged about outrunning the one and only spider-man to get their dinner for that night.

"he saw us, and called out to us, like 'hey! thieves! stop!'" taehyung had said, sipping his coke, "but at that moment a horde of police cars went by, so he shook his head and went after the police!"

"so you didn't technically outrun spider-man, but were instead just lucky bastards?" jeongguk sighed, an amused smile on his face. 

"and i told you, tae, who said spider-man was male?" jimin had groaned.

"i don't see any boobs, and it's spider-man, not woman, chim," taehyung pointed out like it was the most obvious thing, "and whoever this spider-man is, they're really packing it in the downstairs department, like damn-"

"okay that's enough!" jeongguk yelled, interrupting taehyung from yelling profanities unknowingly about his best friend. "go be gay somewhere else!"

"you say it like you aren't," taehyung teased, "and i can, that's what jimin's for."

anyway, it was needless to say that the daily bugle, ever desperate to paint jeongguk's hidden identity in an antagonistic light, wasn't too happy to see that spider-man wasn't chasing every single crime that was committed. this had, in recent times, reflected in the general public as well. while most were still ecstatic to have the web-slinger flinging through the streets, some people with cats in trees and sprained wrists weren't happy to have jeongguk call out the correct emergency services to them as he desperately tried to keep at speed with police officers racing after bigger, more important criminals and minor supervillains. he had time to help those cases on his slow days, but if there was a police siren, chances were jeongguk wouldn't have time to help out the petty stuff. 

he'd kept up this spider-man gig for three years now, and growing up around the rise of the avengers did mean that he knew bad press came with the job. this surge of blame came nowhere near to the time that he'd let an entire building blow up at the hands of kingpin, because he had a hard time getting out of his college class in order to get to the bomb in time. all the newspapers, both local and national, had berated him for failing to be on the job sooner and letting dozens of innocent lives die like that. it had sunk him into a slump so big that he never wanted to put on the mask again.

but duty calls, and he was back to the job with a more ferocious energy to try and take down kingpin with all of his might within a few weeks. 

speaking of duty, jeongguk thought to himself, his self-named spider-senses picking up a disturbance a few blocks away- he had to get back on the job.

cramming his mostly finished essay into the backpack and webbing it down so that it couldn't be stolen for the next couple of hours, he tore across the rooftops of multiple buildings until he had enough speed to launch himself across the street and fling a web to the adjacent building, using his momentum to kick himself high into the air, repeating the process until he was at the train station, where a woman was yelling after a masked man dressed in black- typical bag-stealer. he leapt lightly onto a street light and waited for the right moment to surprise the crook. there was a split second and- there! he shot a web at the bedazzled bag the crook was carrying, flicking his arm so that he caught the bag, jumping down from the light to land in front of the woman and handing her bag out.

"oh! oh, thank you, spider-man!" she cried, flinging her arms around jeongguk. he froze, his eyes widening. this happened every so often, an enthusiastic citizen giving him physical gratitude, but jeongguk was still an awkward human, not knowing what to do, even after all these years. a couple of passers-by chuckled at his awkward pose.

his spider-senses detected a fist flying towards the back of his head, and his first instinct to do was push the poor woman away, trusting the crowd around them to catch her.

"sorry!" he called before swiftly turning and blocking the punch- that is, if it hadn't already smacked into his cheek, leaving a throbbing pain. he gasped, a little dazed, before looking at the assailant. the man who he had grabbed the bag from. he wanted revenge for his foiled plans. jeongguk shook his head, relying on his spider-sense to know where to land his own punch, taking grim satisfaction in the dull crunch as it connected to the thug's nose. he yelled incoherently as his nose was broken, taking one look at the masked hero in front of him before sprinting with all his might, grasping his nose. knowing if left unchecked he'd try to hurt more people, jeongguk followed him to the raucous cheers of civilians. with a grunt, he closed off his immediate hearing as best he could as he ran after the crook, using his spider-sense to foresee where he was going. the wind whistled in his ears as the crook turned a corner and ran into- a parking garage.

"oh no you don't!" jeongguk cried as the thug bolted across the garage and leapt into a silver car, which flashed its headlights immediately and sped right into jeongguk's path.

he jumped to the ceiling, his fingers latching onto the cement as the car sped by him- the thug had a getaway car ready. he frowned as he realised this was no petty crime, but an organised plot to steal from someone important. but why do it at rush hour, when the train station and surrounding blocks were most busy? he had no time to think as he ran out of the parking garage and propelled himself to higher ground with his web, trailing the car speeding along the busy roads, weaving in between the traffic. if it were a few minutes later, it would have been standstill traffic, a fact that jeongguk had cursed himself at not realising sooner. he thought- where would the thugs be running to?

his immediate thought was the hospital a few streets away, to fix the broken nose, so he flung himself in that direction, luckily having the car turn the corner to go that way a second after he did.

but he had reached a pedestrian crossing, currently beeping at the people to cross- the road light was red, and the assailant's car wasn't stopping any time soon. 

the world, not for the first time, slowed down. jeongguk was able to see the people crossing the road, and luckily they were in the right trajectory for jeongguk to speed by and web them with him until they were at a safer spot. until one of them turned, in slow motion, to see the upcoming commotion, and with a terrible jolt in his stomach jeongguk realised it was taehyung- his best friend, walking with who could only be his admittedly very attractive brother seokjin, walking home from the train station.

he needed a way to get both of them to safety- and fast. he looked between the pedestrian crossing, streets lining the path, and the speeding car below him. his spidey-senses kicked in as he did some furiously quick mental math.

"the end of the swing would be an optimal time to land- my approximate location of landing is the door of the apartment complex. if i chat for a few seconds i can web up to the top of the building and jump the roofs until i get to the hospital still with a minute headstart on the runaway car," he said under his breath as he sped towards the crossing.

"alright! let's do this! no sweat!" jeongguk called out as he readied himself to pick up taehyung and seokjin. he shot a web towards them- a splitter, so that it split and wound its way around them so that jeongguk could haul it with him as he landed right in front of the door of the apartment. just as he had predicted.

he made quick work of dissolving the web with an extra function in his web-shooters, highly amused by the excited little yelps taehyung was making.

"it's you! it's really you! spider-man! oh my god, hi! i'm taehyung! this is jin! thank you so much for saving us, oh my gosh-" he yelled, jumping up and down as soon as he was freed from his older brother, who slapped a hand over his mouth to stop him from talking.

"good lord, tae, calm down," seokjin mumbled, and jeongguk felt a swoop on his stomach- okay, sure, he had a big fat crush on the elder. sue him. "thank you so much, spider-man." he stared deep into jeongguk's covered eyes, who for a second thought he could see his true identity- jin's gaze wasn't all that different from an x-ray, looking deep into his very soul. jeongguk stared back at the round brown eyes, taking in the flecks of amber that glowed in the light of the surrounding city. it wasn't until the roaring of the getaway car zoomed past that jeongguk remembered he had a mission at stake, and he had to go.

"uh-" he started, looking at taehyung's round, awesome eyes, and seokjin's amused but gentle ones, realising he had to deepen his voice to protect his identity. "not a problem, boys! stay safe and look before you cross!"

he webbed up to the top of the building, stopped for a second to slap himself in the cheek at his own stupidity- honestly, how tacky was that?- before dashing off across the buildings in the direction of the hospital.

**\--**

jeongguk threw some clothes on over his suit in an alleyway close to his house an hour or two later, now completely absorbed in darkness, satisfied with how he dealt with both crooks. he shrugged his bag over a shoulder and trudged up to the apartment block. a few minutes later, panting slightly due to taking the stairs, he opened the front door, having had to jiggle the lock a little bit before getting it open. aunt may poked her head out of the kitchen a few seconds later as jeongguk was tugging off his sneakers, being careful not to flash any of the characteristic blue of his suit under his socks.

"hey, gukkie," she said carefreely, a tea towel slumped over her shoulder. he raised an arm in greeting, struggling with the laces of one of his shoes. "how was the internship?"

"oh, it was alright," he replied, grunting as he tugged the shoe off, "nothing too special."

he turned, throwing into relief his whole face. aunt may frowned.

"jeongguk, you're bruised again. does someone just not like you very much?" she asked, rushing forward and poking his cheek, bringing a slight smell of bleach with her. he grimaced. he'd forgotten all about it.

"it's fine, i knocked myself in the face," he lied easily, not feeling as guilty as he used to when he first became spider-man. aunt may tittered.

"fine, but you're gonna run out of excuses eventually. you'll have to come clean eventually, mister!" aunt may called as she walked back to the kitchen. "anyway, _someone_ didn't clean the bathroom like they promised so i had to, so now i smell gross. you better get me a thousand perfumes for my birthday!"

"sorry," jeongguk called as he walked into his familiar bedroom, window open and backup suit stored in the wardrobe, "i gotta do some homework, can you heat up some dinner for me?"

he vaguely heard a grumble of confirmation and threat of stuffing dinner up his ass before he closed his door, racing to get out of his suit and into some pyjamas. unless it was absolutely, resolutely a life or death situation, spider-man was done for the day. jeongguk admired his suit before hanging it up delicately between a long coat and the wall of his wardrobe. he sighed, looking forlornly at a bit of rust on his goggles. he'd clean it later.

following his decision to don his superhero identity, a seventeen-year-old jeongguk had made his own suit, relying on his 8th-grade textiles class to haphazardly sew everything together. he didn't have access to spandex, without it looking like he had a hardcore fetish, so he had to settle for something homemade. it did him well, for three years of service, but sometimes he found himself wishing for something a little... more. after his suit came the excuses he was going to have to make for missing classes and coming home at almost obscene hours of the night- so he chalked it up to an internship at stark industries as a media manager; which, yes, he did have, but not for a solid twelve hours of the day. he only officially worked at the new york branch for four hours. the rest was just... unpaid overtime. 

that they happened to not know about. well, maybe tony stark did, whom jeongguk had only seen a few times during his internship, but the man was a genius, a superhero, and very adept at reading the atmosphere, despite his careless attitude. so when the police channel reported an attempted robbery at the bank and jeongguk had to go and help, if stark saw a jeongguk-shaped blur bolting past him and suddenly, a red and blue-dressed web-slinger was at the scene of the crime, well, it was more than a little obvious. but the elder had never said anything, so jeongguk just hoped he was not bothering him. if anything, stark was only highly amused by his rampant excuses and fidgety nature whenever jeongguk was stopped in the halls.

jeongguk had his essay out and was absorbed in his work when aunt may handed him half a box of microwaved pizza. grateful, he looked up and smiled for a brief moment before getting straight back into his work, haphazardly shoving a slice of meat-lovers into his mouth as he worked. may sighed as she sat down on the couch. that boy could be a handful sometimes.

the next day at college, taehyung ran up to jeongguk in the cafeteria.

"you'll never guess what happened!" he said excitedly, sliding into the seat opposite jeongguk. 

"uhh, you adopted a dog," jeongguk lazily said, secretly knowing the next few words that would come out of the other's mouth.

"no! good idea though, i'll ask jimin and jin-" taehyung started, before shaking his head. "anyway! you won't believe this! i was saved by spider-man!"

"yeah? that's awesome, bro," jeongguk smiled, "how?" he had to pretend like he didn't know, like he wasn't the one who saved him, but it was nice to hear some praise to boost his ego while he was at it.

"well there was this car speeding towards me and jin- i was walking home with him, we happened to catch the same train home, and so there we were, crossing the road normally, when this car speeds around the corner- but! from the corner of my eye, there was this red and blue blur- it was spider-man! he webbed us up and i got shouldered in the face by jin, you know how tall he is," taehyung said, very fast, and jeongguk nodded. oh, he knew how tall jin was, alright. "but he scooped us up and landed us on the sidewalk and i said thanks and jin said thanks and he kind of stared at jin? well, the guy's so handsome he could model for gucci, i don't blame him, but then he was all like 'yeah no problem' in this hilariously deep voice, like he was trying to hide his identity, and it was so cute- i mean funny, and he webbed himself up and away! and yeah, i was saved! the car zoomed past a second later, we would have been dead meat if spider-man didn't get us when he did!"

"last night?" jimin asked, having just arrived, sliding next to taehyung and giving him a short peck on the cheek. "sounds awesome, tae, i'm surprised you didn't jizz on the spot."

both taehyung and jeongguk pulled a face. taehyung had a massive crush on spider-man, and jeongguk was just traumatised that his best friend had a crush on his secret identity.

"anyway, how's jin?" jeongguk asked, trying to keep his interest conversational. jimin smirked at jeongguk, who glared in return. "i mean, after he quit stark and all, didn't he end up at octavius industries?"

"yeah," taehyung affirmed, nodding, "octo's got him working full shifts, something about neurological equipment, something something scientific breakthrough, blah blah blah. it's kinda boring as shit."

jeongguk secretly thought that whatever jin was working on would be the most interesting thing ever, but he didn't voice this. jimin's smirk grew even wider, if possible.

"why?" taehyung asked, and jeongguk blushed. 

"oh, it's just, i haven't seen him in a while, i don't know what he's doing nowadays," he replied meekly, and taehyung shrugged.

"speaking of not seeing in a while, come over for dinner next week- you know, for jin's birthday. he's insisted on cooking his own food, he said he's making korean," taehyung smiled, oblivious to jeongguk's giant crush. jeongguk blanched.

"i'll see what i can do- stark internship and all," he replied.

**\--**

and that was how, one week later, at seven pm sharp, he was sitting in the kims' living room, where jimin and taehyung were already well into a game of mariokart wii, and a delicious salty-sweet smell was wafting from the kitchen, where seokjin was cooking up a storm, look frazzled in a flowery pink apron, from what jeongguk could see when he popped in to say 'hello, happy birthday hyung!". some of jin's friends from work or college or as far back as high school were also here, all of whom jeongguk had already been introduced to- namjoon, yoongi and hoseok. they had called greetings to him as he entered and had struck up polite conversation as they caught up with each other after almost several months of not seeing each other. they weren't close enough to have their numbers or visit them, but it was nice to talk to them all the same.

that is, until they went to get some beer from the fridge and their conversation with jeongguk faded. so now, he sat anxiously by the window, looking desperately outside when he sensed a commotion or heard police sirens- he had done some spider-man duty but wasn't able to fully commit tonight. 

"hey, relax," taehyung said offhandedly, currently in 1st place to the chagrin of a whining jimin, "wanna play? we're on our last game."

"yeah, sure," jeongguk said, picking up a controller and a nunchuk (motion controls were for chumps) to ready himself. he needed a distraction. the other boys returned from the fridge and also joined in, sparking a big competition between the six of them. jin was shouting from the kitchen that he wanted to have a round when they had eaten dinner so they couldn't burn themselves out just yet.

as absolutely everyone expected, jeongguk thrashed the others; being naturally good at video games and having heightened reflexes. he had to be careful to react to blue shells and well-timed red shells at a respectable time, not right before or as they happened, to avoid suspicion. within eight races of jeongguk absolutely dominating the game, seokjin announced that his, quote, "best dinner in the world, period" was ready and it was time to eat.

having been too distracted to look at what seokjin was doing as he set the table with great-smelling food due to mariokart, jeongguk took the time to marvel at all the homemade korean food that was laid out before him, the dining table almost groaning with the weight of fried chicken, seafood jajangmyeon, japchae, sushi, meat jjigae, kimchi fried rice, and so many side dishes that sent jeongguk's head sprawling- it smelt delicious, but almost sickly and thick in the air when enhanced by his spider-senses. he nevertheless sat down at the dining table, next to a preening jin, gaping at the sheer amount of food. within no time, they had all dug in, taking bits from every plate and eating happily. namjoon, hoseok and yoongi were drinking their beers and comparing lines of work and how they could accomplish tasks at work. taehyung and jimin, ever the adorable couple, were feeding each other, hampered slightly by their overenthusiasm, while seokjin was making almost sinful moans every time he put something even slightly delicious in his mouth. fortunately for jeongguk, he was able to drink them in, filing them away for further use, perhaps when it was dark, his curtains were drawn and he was alone in his room... but unfortunately for jeongguk, these moans were accompanied by harsh slaps to his shoulder and arms.

"hyung, you're hitting me," jeongguk said, after dropping his japchae for the third time due to being hit. seokjin jumped, and looked guiltily at him.

"sorry, jeonggukkie," he apologised, the younger preening at the informal nickname, "i can't help it- the food's too good!"

other than the slapping, jeongguk had never felt so content; at peace with the world. jimin, taehyung, hoseok and namjoon were now loudly debating about superheroes and how they affected capitalism, jin pitching in his own ideas, having worked at stark industries, and jeongguk also occasionally sharing his own opinions. yoongi was mostly silent, as was his rather mysterious nature, but could still be seen smirking or laughing along with the debate. the food was better than jeongguk had ever had before- sorry aunt may- and it just tasted like he was in korea, visiting his maternal halmeoni in busan, who was famous around town for her own seafood jajangmyeon. jin's could easily beat his halmeoni's in a competition of best tastes, jeongguk thought to himself, not saying out loud in fear of being lectured for his 'abandonment of heritage', as taehyung had put it once, when he had declared he liked american food more than korean food. 

being able to just let go of all his stress of balancing so many things in his life was soothing, calming, and jeongguk knew to hold onto the feeling, for it would disappear as soon as he stepped out of the apartment. he was able to just be jeongguk jeon, a normal twenty-year-old dude, having a nice dinner with his friends. no superpowers, no responsibilities, he could just be a third-year college student for a few hours. 

it was nice to just be a normal dude, if only for a short time, he thought several hours later, lying in his bed and stuffed full of food. he could just pretend that he never was bitten by the spider. it left a slighty bitter taste in his mouth at the thought of not having superpowers permanently- he liked it; loved it, it was his job and his life at this point. but sometimes he just needed a stress relief. he hoped seokjin invited him over for dinner more often.


	3. issue #3 - the art of subtlety

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tldr; jin is one good-looking bastard, taehyung has no chill, and jeongguk isn't subtle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry that it's been almost a month since i last updated. i got pretty distracted and forgot that i had a self-indulgent fic to write. it took a rewatch of infinity war to get me back in the spider-man groove, so here i am! enjoy!
> 
> as per usual, this isn't beta'd, so prepare for the inevitable typos. i did my best!

"oh god, i'm so tired," jin complained, sinking onto the couch next to jeongguk. he was back at the kimjim's household (their words, not his) to relax on a weekend before starting his spider-man duties. seokjin had just awoken and currently had a small mountain of french toast on his plate for breakfast, despite it being closer to lunch.

"octavius stuff?" jeongguk asked, stealing a bit of the french toast. jin glared at him for stealing his food, but nodded nonetheless, sighing.

"i'm going crazy! these work hours are nuts! if i work one more hour a week i can complain about slavery or something. otto- he's a great man, absolute genius, but he's driving us all up the wall with his ideas," jin explained, "expecting perfect prototypes within days of pitching. he won't let us do our own things anymore either. it's his ideas, his stuff, or we're fired."

"yikes," jeongguk said, "sounds rough. is octavius okay?"

seokjin shrugged. "we think he might be going round the twist a little bit. he's grown quite manic over the last few months, muttering shit about oscorp and stark industries. the stress of doing better than his competitors is getting to him, big time." jin sighed again, looking forlornly into his plate of french toast. "but ah well, he pays us well. how do you think i can afford this apartment, in the middle of fucking new york? neither taehyung nor jimin work."

jeongguk snorted, stealing more french toast. seokjin let him, and shifted his plate so it was more in between the two of them. "i might be able to inves- i mean, ask stark. what might be happening. if going nuts is normal." that was a close one, he thought. jin looked at him with a slight furrow in his brows, but didn't pursue his sudden shift in words. 

"if stark can make some sort of serum to make otto less crazy, that'd be great," jin let out a sad little chuckle. "i'm just tired. i love my work, and otto really is great. i just need my beauty sleep. these pores don't keep themselves closed!" jeongguk smiled at this, knowing jin was fine if he made comments about his own extreme beauty. he couldn't help but agree- jin usually had amazing skin, but had been looking dull as of late.

"can't you change your hours?" he asked.

"to what? all hours that octavius industries is open, i'm working. he won't let us have individual shifts because he says we need to work together closely and do simultaneous work to deliver the best results. listen kid, i'm okay," seokjin smiled at the younger, who flushed slightly. "oh, it's almost noon. don't you have your internship?"

"oh!" jeongguk gasped. "yes! i do! thanks jin!"

"yeah, not a problem," jin replied, taking a large bite of his brunch. "fanks for sdobbing by!" he tried to speak around the colossal chunk of food he had in his mouth. he swallowed (with immense difficulty) and smiled again, standing up to show jeongguk to the door. "you really should hang out more often. you're a breath of fresh air, y'know that? better than the lovebirds."

jeongguk flushed with pride. him? good to be around? seokjin's own words? "uh- yeah! it's really no problem, i like hanging around here. may expects me to be so clean. you're chill," he said, keeping his voice calm. "i'll text you when i can come around next. let me know when you're free, yeah?"

"it's a date!" jin declared, and jeongguk's eyes widened. "i'm just kidding, gukkie. unless you want it to be?"

"i've gotta go bye!" jeongguk hurriedly cried, a hand on the doorknob.

"i wouldn't blame you, you know," jin continued, smirking at jeongguk's red face. "i am just that handsome."

"uh- sure. i'll text you!" jeongguk repeated, and jin laughed.

"relax, kid. see you soon," he said, and swooped in to give jeongguk a short peck on the cheek. jeongguk froze. "now get outta here, i have french toast to eat and anime to watch. have fun at your internship!"

as jeongguk rushed out the door, he didn't stop to notice that seokjin's ears were a vibrant shade of red.

**\--**

the weekend passed in a blur of mundane crime-fighting, homework, actual internships and memories of jin's plush lips on jeongguk's cheek. he couldn't stop thinking about it. was it platonic? or did it imply something more? would the next time they ate together be a date? what was even happening between them? seokjin did have a habit of holding jeongguk's hand or hugging him from behind, seemingly out of the blue. but he also did it to taehyung and jimin- maybe not to the same degree as he did to jeongguk, which meant- did jin actually like him back?

monday came, and with it, jin's first shift back at work since spilling the beans to jeongguk, who decided he'd check in throughout his duties and make sure octavius wasn't being a total cuck. he had to go about this carefully- if spider-man was hanging around octavius industries then someone might think octavius was up to something sinister, which would most likely put a degree of separation between him and the employees, something that could make octavius even more unstable. so in between crimes, he'd swing past the building, sneaking a peek at the interior of the rundown building. occasionally he'd see jin, working away with sweat on his brow, and have to force himself to keep moving. sometime close to five in the evening, when the sun was beginning to threaten to sink beyond the horizon, when jeongguk was thinking about packing up for the day unless something else popped up, he took one final leap onto the walls of the octavius building, slowly raising his head past the windowsill as to not raise alarm, looking into the main workroom of the building. 

he raised his head just in time to see octavius, a slightly large man in a lab coat and goggles perched on his head, freeze, his limbs visibly locking up and twitching uncontrollably. he let out a shout, barely heard by jeongguk through the glass, and jin came rushing to catch him as he fell backwards. jin set him on the ground and hovered anxiously over him until octavius was able to move once more. octavius nodded, and spoke something that jin nodded to. jin left the main room and disappeared from jeongguk's sight. 

jeongguk lowered his head and spun around, his hands and feet sticking to the building. what was wrong with octavius that made him freeze up like that?

it was something that jeongguk thought deeply about until well into the night, when aunt may was stretching in her spot on the couch, about to go to bed.

"hey," she said, to which jeongguk did not respond. "hey!"

jeongguk snapped out of his thoughts with a start, looking at her, rather shellshocked. 

"what has got you in such deep thought, ggukkie?" aunt may asked, "you look rather like you've got a life or death situation to make, what's wrong? and don't you say that it's nothing, young man," she said as jeongguk opened his mouth, "you're too predictable. come on, i'm your sweet old trustworthy aunt, you can tell me what it is!"

"oh, uh..." jeongguk figured the truth wouldn't hurt, so long as he hid certain parts of it. "jin- taehyung's brother- said doctor octavius hasn't been feeling well, freezing up sometimes. it's making him angry so he'd setting everyone in the building to work overtime and it's just exhausting for everyone."

"oh, jin, as in kim seokjin? the boy you have a glaringly obvious crush on?" jeongguk gaped. "i'm not dumb, ggukkie. i'm rather perceptive, you idiot. look, what's happening to octavius isn't something you need to worry so much about! i get it, you want to help, but some things are beyond your control, sweetie."

"oh, you're right, may," jeongguk replied, prefering not to tell her that he will absolutely try to help and control the situation, "i think i'm just too worried about jin. how'd- how'd you even know i liked him, anyway?"

"it's the look on your face, ggukkie. you're so adorable."

**\--**

almost two weeks passed without any more disturbances on octavius' end. on jeongguk's end however... things were just getting busier.

stark was setting jeongguk to do extra work with avengers data and management, meaning he had less time for a social life or spider-man stuff. his college was nearing midterms, and the amount of homework he was getting was kicking his ass. his spider-man stuff was getting more and more taxing, with such a flurry in crimes within new york as the end of the fiscal year approached, which all accumulated in hardly any sleep and a very, very tired jeongguk. he'd still web past the octavius building if he had time, but time was becoming less and less available with everything he had to do. he was so tired he almost forgot to wear his spider-suit when doing his morning duties of a thursday morning, before classes, only being reminded by the lack of gloves when he started descending down the wall of his bedroom window. 

it was a friday night when something finally happened with octavius. jeongguk was swinging past on his way to a robbery in hell's kitchen when he caught a flash of silver being thrown across the room through the window. he leapt onto the building and looked into the window, not worried about being caught because spider-man could get distracted sometimes, but every employee's attention was not focused on the sudden appearance of spider-man in the window, but on the fact that octavius had just thrown a very expensive-looking prototype of what appeared to have been a neurologically controlled prosthetic arm across the lab. octavius was seething, breathing heavily, everyone around him looking quite worried. jeongguk couldn't help but notice that jin was almost in tears, looking stressed out of his mind. jeongguk thought that it must have been jin's arm that had been hurled away. 

the sound of sirens a few blocks away reminded jeongguk of what he had to be doing, and with great reluctance, he swung away, once again deep in thought.

**\--**

the thing about a tired, stressed jeongguk who was also deep in thought was that he happened to be very... loose. if you asked him a question he'd answer with true honesty without thinking about what he was being asked. which happened to be a great recipe for disaster when one of the greatest geniuses in the world was his boss.

tony stark approached jeongguk who was almost falling asleep in his desk chair, clapping a hand on his shoulder. jeongguk almost shrieked as he snapped out of his stupor.

"hey, kid," stark said, "you seem to be, uh, pretty tired."

"oh, yeah," jeongguk remarked offhandedly, as he typed away at his computer. 

"surely just this internship and school can't be kicking your ass this hard. you got any extracurriculars, kid?"

"mm? oh, yeah... just this one, pretty important thing."

"what is it?"

"spider-man stuff. you wouldn't really understand..."

"me? not understand? kid, you're dumber than you look," stark said, almost smugly. he clapped jeongguk's shoulder once again, whose eyes widened as he realised what he had just said. 

"oh, fuck!" he swore, "shit, i wasn't meant to tell you that! oh, shit."

"relax," stark replied. "come with me?"

"what?"

"come with me."

so this was how jeongguk was trotting behind tony stark, walking through hallways and side rooms until he approached a small-ish room with only a few panels where a wardrobe was hidden.

"this is your new suit, kid." stark said, pointing at the hidden wardrobe that swung open and revealed a fancy spider-suit. 

"oh my god," jeongguk marvelled as he walked close to it. "it's beautiful."

it truly was. where jeongguk had a hooded vest and goggles with winter gloves and sneakers, this suit had a streamlined silhouette, with a skintight material, a webbing pattern across a sleek red and blue design. the eyes were lenses, made of-

"reinforced plastic," stark called out. "the lenses. you can see out, they can't see in, but the perimetres are made of nanoparticles that react to your facial expression. my own design."

"mr stark, thank you!" jeongguk cried out, touching the smooth suit. "how- how did you know?"

"you ran off every time there was a news bulletin. you really need to be less obvious about it," stark replied, a smirk on his face as he looked at the younger admiring the suit. "and hey, kid, don't worry about coming back into the office. i'll give you the suit if you start officially doing 'spider-man stuff' as the internship."

"really?"

"yep. as long as you don't ever say that i don't understand what it's like to be a hero," stark replied, "ever again. as silly as that little slip-up was, it makes you look like a massive idiot."

"oh, okay! thank you for the suit!" jeongguk said, almost vibrating with anticipation to get into the suit and start cleaning the city of crimes. 

"geez, kid, just go," stark chuckled, "i can see you're raring to go. just come back here once a week to tell me about anything super important. otherwise, i've installed a bluetooth device in the ear so that you can talk to me. now go, before i have to throw you out."

despite the new suit being a breath of fresh air, jeongguk was still tired, stressed, and deep in thought. when he wasn't exploring what this new, comfortable suit that he could wear easily under his clothes, he was almost dead to the world, either sleeping on every available surface (taehyung's lap, his desk and jin's couch came to mind) or feverishly studying and doing homework. he often forgot to eat, having aunt may hit him incessantly until he put something in his mouth, or relying on taehyung and jimin to poke juice box straws or granola bars into his mouth if they had time to take a short break. jeongguk was still slaving away at the octavius problem, researching various neurological problems that would make a person spontaneously freeze up along with decaying emotional stability, and either he was shit at researching, or it was a fairly unknown disease (webmd said it was brain cancer). 

in the blink of an eye, his midterms were finished and he had been released from college for one blissful week. he'd hardly been able to catch up on lost sleep when he was being coerced into a friend-marathon day with taehyung and jimin. they crammed themselves into this tiny bedroom and played hero documentaries on his laptop. jeongguk was able to take a break from thinking so much and unwind, but he felt somewhat out of it, almost dizzy and hardly paying attention to what was being played on the laptop. taehyung and jimin tried to start conversations with him, but most of them were shortlived. 

at some point they gave up and left jeongguk to gaze off into a corner of his room where a small spider was spinning a web. they starting debating about whether or not terrible crime organisations were an actual daily thing that superheroes had to deal with. jimin just didn't think it was as common as the media portrayed.

"i mean, how many times do these people come back and try again? they've got to give up at some point, y'know, admit they've lost!" he pointed out, to which taehyung scoffed.

"do superheroes just give up when they lose? no! it's not because they're superheroes and that's what they do, no one just does things for the sake of doing them, they've got their own motivations and shit, and that's the same for supervillains. kingpin, the green goblin? mysterio? they've all got their own motivations and that's what keeps them going!" taehyung retorted.

"but like, how are there so many of them? if they actually had brains, they'd all make a plan to take over the city all at once so that the local hero can't stop them all together. and what about, and hear me out here," jimin said, when taehyung opened his mouth to say something, "all the intergalactic space shit. is that stuff seriously real? is there so much out there that heroes like thor and the guardians can't keep on top of it all?"

"space is big, chim, theres bound to be an infinite amount of crime," jeongguk mumbled, blinking slowly at him. "the media doesn't exaggerate, they have their own threats out there that they have to work hard to stop. it's up to us small-time hero folk to stop what we can down here to avoid shit like that up there."

"us?" taehyung asked, leaning towards jeongguk. "small-time city heroes?"

"well, yeah, i mean, as spider-man, i only ever deal with petty and organised crimes, stark doesn't let me do anything bigger-" oh. oh god. oh fuck. shit.

taehyung and jimin stared at jeongguk. jeongguk stared back. there was almost a minute of pure silence in which the three just stared at each other, punctuated only by the sounds of narration of the documentary. 

then taehyung screamed. jeongguk covered his ears desperately, his face scrunching up. he hadn't closed off his super hearing properly, being too tired to really concentrate, so the very wavelengths of the sound echoed deeply within his ears. jimin just sat, looking at his feet with his mouth slightly open.

"y-you're spider-man?! as in, the amazing incredibly spectacular friendly neighborhood spider-man?!" taehyung screeched, shaking jeongguk's arm with no care for his wellbeing. "no way! no! way! i need proof! PROOF, i tell you!!"

jeongguk grimaced as he pointed his wrist at his wardrobe door, shooting his web and gripping it to swing the door open. inside was his pristine spider-man suit with the older one hanging next to it, just in case. taehyung gasped, then ran to touch his suit. jeongguk shot a web at him so that he'd stop.

"please, don't touch it, tae, it's nothing personal, i swear, it's just that the suit has a lot of different functions and stark gave it to me last month and i want to take the best care of it..." jeongguk rambled, feeling his face turn deep red as taehyung stared at him in awe. jimin was still looking at his feet, but spoke up.

"so every time you've had to flake on us, it'd been for... this?" he asked, looking rather incredulous. he slowly raised his head to look at the younger.

"y-yeah."

"you've got some damn explaining to do, jeon jeongguk!" jimin cried suddenly, causing jeongguk to flinch.

"alright," he said sheepishly, and motioned for taehyung (who was looking at the web still attached to his arm like he was in love with it) to sit back down. "i was bitten by the escaped bio subject at oscorp. that night you guys came over and i felt sick, was when my powers showed up. when i had the panic attack at the train station, was when my superhearing became unbearable. since then, i worked on my powers, learning to control them. i became spider-man, took on an internship at stark industries to get a closer insight to how superheroes work, and... yeah. been doing everything i can to stop crime in the city, or at least deter people from doing anything nasty."

there was another prolonged silence.

taehyung was the first to speak up. "can i be your man in the chair?"


	4. issue #4 - trouble in hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> jeongguk's faced with what might be the biggest threat he's ever dealt with as spider-man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello it's been a hot minute i know i'm sorry omg, i've been super busy with university  
> i saw endgame the other day and got really inspired to pick this back up so uhhhh here we go  
> thank you to all the awesome people leaving comments and bookmarking the series! thank you for leaving kudos!
> 
> as always, this is horribly unbeta'd so excuse typos lol
> 
> cw: violence, death, potentially scary themes

"can i be your man in the chair?" taehyung asked, his eyes wide, reminding jeongguk of a puppy. jeongguk just stared at him for a few seconds. 

"uh, do you even have the skills required to do that? also i don't have any form of communication with you when i'm in the suit?" jeongguk pointed out. 

"you don't know what i'm capable of," taehyung replied easily. jeongguk blanched. "i'm kidding! i'm kidding! not about the man in the chair thing though, that's always been a dream of mine, so, like, please? you can't bring out your phone in between jobs?"

"i mean, i have a bluetooth in my ear to communicate with my suit lady- kinda like siri, y'know? stark programmed her for me. but that's all it's for. i have a separate communication channel for sider-man, and i put my phone very securely in my bag which is then webbed to the top of my apartment building, so no. no communication," jeongguk replied.

jimin cleared his throat. "okay, this is great and all, you're spider-man, blah blah blah, so does this explain all the bruises? all the incidents? because dear god, jeonggukkie, how injured do you get?"

"i heal pretty quickly? and i'm pretty resistant to most injuries?" jeongguk explained, "but it's fine- i'm fine. i've been doing this for two years and only now you're concerned?"

"we haven't known that you were a superhuman spider-person for two years!" jimin cried out. he realised he yelled a little bit too loudly, so sat in silence for a couple of seconds, before bursting out into peals of laughter. jeongguk and taehyung joined in, and soon there was just three twenty-something idiots laughing like maniacs in a very cramped bedroom.

****

\--

"so you don't even have organic webs? you have too make them yourself?" taehyung asked, both palms down on the table as he leaned slightly over his forgotten lunch.

"nah, but i did think that the webs would come out of my ass when i first got my powers," jeongguk replied, swallowing down his forkful of chicken. jimin snorted into his own burger. "what? it's a perfectly reasonable assumption, if you ask me!"

"but that, you don't even have a gland? that produces webs?" taehyung pushed further. jeongguk shook his head. "man, that's so boring! you're boring, jeonggukkie!"

"what, so the fact that i can scale walls with my bare hands and feet, have incredible superhuman strength and speed and can all but tell the future is all well and good but the fact that i can't shoot my own webs makes me terribly boring and you never want to associate yourself with me- jimin don't you dare make that joke." jeongguk glared sharply at jimin, who had drawn in a breath with a wicked smile on his face. jimin instantly slumped in his seat and morosely poked his plastic fork into his chips. 

"i didn't say that i never wanted to associate myself with you ever again, jeonggukie, i'm just saying that it's, well, it's kinda boring! and doesn't really make sense. logically, i mean. spiders produce their own webs, so why can't you?" taehyung explained. he gave a small "oh!" as he realised he had put his elbow into his bowl of noodles. 

"listen, jeonggukkie, my adorable son," jimin pleaded, as taehyung tried to peel noodles from his rather expensive sweater. "it's not even that bad of a joke, i mean, like, shoot your web? you walked into that one, buddy."

"it's gross! a thirteen-year-old would make tha-" jeongguk cut himself off as his spidey-senses started making sirens and alarms in his head. "shit, i've gotta-"

he was cut off for the second time by a large BOOM, followed by a tremendous shaking of the cafeteria. taehyung and jimin both turned to jeongguk, who was already packing his things hurriedly, unceremoniously shoving his books into his bag and thrusting it to jimin. 

"i've gotta go, keep yourselves safe! don't bother coming after me or trying to help! just go somewhere safe!" he cried, abandoning his lunch to go running off to the direction of the noise.

as he exited the cafeteria and looked to the direction his spidey-senses were practically yelling at him to go, his eyes widened. one of his college buildings was on fire, having been blown up. around him was pandemonium as students were screaming and yelling, scrambling past each other to get as far away from the impact zone as they could. 

"-man with eight arms-" "look out!" "-tentacles!" "-he blew it up and-"

jeongguk, not caring who saw him for they'd most likely forget it in the panic of the moment, flung a web to the top of the cafeteria building, sprinting across the roof and jumping to the next, flinging off his clothes as he raced to the building now almost completely engulfed in flames. a man was crawling along the building, seeming to use more limbs to aid him up the side the building. above the screams of everyone on the ground, the crackling of flames and sirens of incoming emergency services, jeongguk could hear a maniacal cackling, rising in volume as he got closer to the building. jeongguk crammed his mask on, and his spider-vision engaged. 

"suit lady, activate crisis mode!" jeongguk cried as he shot a web to the sill of one window that wasn't on fire. separate spider limbs shot out of the back of his suit as he landed, absorbing most of the impact of landing on a very hot building. jeongguk swore as the hot glass burned his fingers under the suit, and let go to rely on his extra limbs. 

"there are three people in here that have currently readable signs of life, activating enhanced spider-vision," suit lady said calmly, as if the very building jeongguk was navigating wasn't on fire. jeongguk suddenly could see outlines of where the people where crawling. "the safest way to get in is through the fire escape on the other side of the building."

"i don't have time, i need to smash the window!" jeongguk yelled.

"it is inadvisable, as the sudden oxygen intake into the immediate vicinity of the window could forge the flames," suit lady replied. jeongguk shook his head.

"i have to do it, there are people dying in there!" he exclaimed. 

"alright, but be careful and keep most of your face and body away from the smash zone."

jeongguk took a deep breath and swung to the side, using one of his extra legs to smash a hole in the glass. immediately a big _whoosh_ made him jump back even further as an explosion blew out the window. he stuck to the top of the window as he slipped agilely in and crawled along the ceiling to get to the people stuck in the building.

it took a while to find them, having been blocked from finding the easiest routes, but eventually, he had all three people slowly lowered onto the concrete where emergency services were already trying to get to the victims. 

then he turned his attention to the laughing figure on the roof, clung with his four extra robotic limbs while he scratched uncontrollably at his arms and chest.

"hey! doctor robotnic!" jeongguk called out, focusing his spider-vision on the man to try to check police databases to identify him. no criminal data came up. this guy was new to the scene. 

"get away from me, runt!" the man screamed, and retreated further up the building. jeongguk climbed after him. "i said get away! i'll kill you!"

"not likely, robocop! i'm spider-man, remember? been up against worse people than you and i got away scott-free!" jeongguk yelled back. "you've got no criminal record! no mention of 'scary man with eight arms conquers queens once again'! you're new- and obviously don't know what you're up against!"

"oh-ho, little boy! you are so wrong! don't think i haven't seen you swinging past my building, looking into my windows, staking me out like some sort of experimental rat! i know you, spider-man! you've gotten too cocky!" the man laughed. "you don't know what YOU'RE up against!"

jeongguk's eyes widened as he put two and two together. "wait- doctor octavius?!"

"oh, octavius is gone! he's too weak to be able to control my beautiful prosthetic arms! i'm doctor octopus now! and i will destroy everything everyone has ever loved!" he started taking slow steps towards jeongguk, so that the younger could see the goggles and heavily lined face. 

"why? because you can't keep moving your limbs? it's nothing to destroy the city over! i get it, it sucks, but you should really see a counsellor about that shit, man!" jeongguk called out. doctor octopus just got madder. 

"i can't work! my brilliant mind, laid to waste by the fact that i can't use my body! these limbs give me movement, spider-boy! i'll be put to bed for the rest of my life!"

"no! haven't you seen steven hawking? he did all his wheelchair shit with his mind! you can still do what you love, without putting the safety of everyone at stake!" 

"you don't understand what it's like, kid! knowing that slowly all your bodily functions will die, even my mind! it's not just my limbs, you insolent boy! slowly, everything will die, and i'll be as good as a vegetable!"

doctor octopus was getting very close to jeongguk now; close enough to see his look of absolute fury. close enough to see his own startled reflection in the dark goggles. doctor octopus raised one of his limbs, ready to strike, and jeongguk was ready to tumble away, ready to fight. all his nerves were on high alert, ready for a fight. octopus struck; jeongguk skirted to the side, not before one of octopus' robotic arms caught on the eye of his headpiece and pulled. 

jeongguk crawled backwards in horror as his eyepiece fell away- it affected his vision, he couldn't see his robotically enhanced statistics and information in one of his eyes anymore. 

"eyepiece destroyed, jeongguk." the suit lady said calmly. jeongguk looked up at doctor octopus, who was advancing on him. 

"i'll have to replace it later, you have to shift all information to one eye," he hissed back, jumping back again as doctor octopus lunged for him again.

"stop running, superhero! come on, let's see how my darling arms hold up against the amazing spider-man!" he lunged again and caught jeongguk's cheek, clipping the skin. jeongguk leapt back again, and tensed, holding his arms out.

he kept leaping back, relying on his extra limbs to balance him. he, of course, could easily move along the side of the wall. doctor octopus has to smash his own limbs into the glass and limestone to establish a footing. jeongguk looked at the limbs currently anchored into the glass. he had a plan. 

he stood up, and ran. doctor octopus' eyes widened in shock as jeongguk suddenly fell on his behind and slid, kicking one of the limbs out of the anchor and breaking the glass around it. the glass continued to snap and break, and doctor octopus into the building beneath him as the window gave way. with the sudden oxygen now flowing into the burning room, the fire expanded with a massive _whoosh!_ and expelled from the window. jeongguk was blown back from the force of the explosion and his extra limbs had to anchor him in as he started falling from the building. his nose felt like it was tingling and he smelt burnt hair. his face was extraordinarily hot. he heard a loud scream coming from inside the building and looked up in horror at the smashed window. 

"oh god..." he muttered to himself. he felt faint. he reached up and felt his face in numb horror as the realisation of what he did sank in. he could feel his nose, slightly crispy like a terrible sunburn; his eyebrows were singed; he had a gash on his cheek, bleeding freely; and his mask had mostly fallen away. his heartbeat was slowing, he could hear firefighters climbing the stairs a few floors down, and pain was now throbbing through his face. he needed to leave, go somewhere, anywhere.

\--

jin was sitting at the table with jimin and taehyung, the pair coming home in a breathless rush after the building had exploded. jin had hugged them tightly, and asked them what had happened. they didn't really know. they were all facing the television, providing a live broadcast of the incident.

they had seen every part of spider-man's fight with doctor octavius. jin hadn't seen it coming- his boss, a supervillain? he'd taken work off today because he'd been overworked the previous day, perfecting the same limbs that octavius was wearing on the television. jimin and taehyung had gripped each other tightly every time octavius took a swing at spider-man. one had connected, and they all saw that spider-man's mask had fallen away- but the camera was too far away to see any detail. they saw how spider-man had broken the limb's anchor point and octavius had fallen in. jimin had let out a relieved sob, his mouth covering his hands, even as spider-man fell and caught himself. they saw how he had stopped for a second, before swinging away without his usual nods and peace signs to the news cameras like in previous saves. he just... left.

now the live journalist was reporting to the camera the casualties, the firefighters working on putting out the fire, the semantics of an emergency like this. jin was watching and listening intently for his bosses' name- had he really just perished so easily in the fire? was he dead, just like that?

he screamed when there was a knock at the window. 

before jin had even turned his head, taehyung had cried, "jeongguk!" and he and jimin had rushed to open the window. 

jin gasped as spider-man collapsed through the window, breathing heavily. taehyung and jimin were obstructing his face, but jin was smart enough to know who was behind them.

"j-jeongguk?" jin stammered as he, too, fell to his knees and scrambled to help the boy up. jeongguk's nose was burnt a deep brown, his eyebrows almost nonexistent, a few cuts across his face. 

jeongguk looked up at jin blearily. 

"did i ever tell you that you have a really nice face?" jeongguk hoarsely whispered, before passing out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there is gonna be an epilogue issue don't worry


	5. issue #5- all is well

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> maybe jeongguk is a little too obsessed with morals, but hey, he saves the city, so where's his gratitude?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uwu my baby is finally complete
> 
> i'm almost sad to let this thing go, writing it has been so fun and i've really been able to take out my spider-nerdiness in a great way with this fic. thank you all for the amazing support, the kudos' and the bookmarks! i hope you enjoy this epilogue!
> 
> this is, as per usual, un-beta'd, but i will be going through and fixing up typos and any loose ends in the next few weeks. enjoy!

"i swear to god, you're gonna strain something if you keep carrying all these boxes at the same time!"

"i'm good! i'll be fine!"

"if you don't strain something then you'll break something tripping over your own feet because you can't see from how many damn boxes you're carrying!"

"if i break a bone, it'll heal in like two hours- like i said, i'll be fine!"

"i wasn't talking about you, you asshole!"

jeongguk let out a bark of laughter as he stepped over the threshold of his new apartment, easily carrying too many boxes for a normal human to carry. he took careful steps, and trusted his spidey-sense to alert him of any obstacles in the way, lest seokjin whack him- considering he had super-human healing, jin's repeated slaps to the shoulder and/or chest still hurt a lot. 

he put the boxes down next to a much bigger box lying on the floor. he stared at it, and sighed. the couch was gonna be a bitch to put together. 

jeongguk's spidey-senses tingled as a presence snuck up behind him. he rapidly spun around and smirked as seokjin pouted.

"you couldn't have pretended to not notice me? gah, you're such a mood killer," seokjin muttered as he wrapped his arms around jeongguk's neck. jeongguk laughed again. "you asshole."

"and i love you too, hyung," jeongguk teased. he winced as seokjin slapped his chest.

"oh dear, did that hurt you? oh diddums, boohoo! i'm jeongguk jeon and my boyfriend is mean!" seokjin continued teasing, even as he leaned in to give jeongguk a quick kiss. "anyway, you're putting the couch together, right? i don't need to help?"

"it'd be nice if you could help."

"what's the magic word?"

"please? i love you? with spicy pork hotpot on top?"

"hmm... i dunno..."

"i'll take you for another swing around new york?"

seokjin leant back in jeongguk's embrace and glared. "no. never again. you can't make me."

"help me build the couch or else i'll take you for a swing," jeongguk countered, and got another slap to the chest. 

"you're lucky you're so handsome. but you owe me spicy pork hotpot!" jin gave jeongguk another kiss and sauntered into the kitchen. "if you could start unpacking the stuff in here, that'd be great. jimin and taehyung will be here any minu-"

he was cut off by the sounds of jimin and taehyung unceremoniously wrenching the door opening and waltzing into the apartment.

"hey lovebirds!" jimin called, and he smiled at jeongguk. "enjoying the new place? broken it in yet?"

jeongguk made a face. "we haven't unpacked any boxes yet. there is no conceivable way to 'break it in' with literally nothing unpacked."

"hmm, i dunno, jeongguk, i just put the blender away, that could be used for something, right?" seokjin yelled from the kitchen. jeongguk ignored him.

"anyway, y'all are gross. help me unpack," he said, and bent down to pull the tape off the nearest box. "oh my god, this one has all the photos!"

"ooh! is the one of five-year-old taehyung in the bath with bubbles in his hair in here?" jimin asked, and began pulling frames wrapped in copious amounts of bubble wrap out of the box. he gasped as he found the right one. "this is my favourite photo of you, babe!" he showed the picture to taehyung.

"urgh, can i throw it out?" taehyung asked, and seokjin yelled incoherently from the kitchen to get his attention.

"no! you cannot throw it out! that one's going right next to the tv so we can be reminded by how much of a dork you are whenever we're watching tv." jin appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, holding a toaster. "if it mysteriously goes missing, i'll murder you."

"you don't have the body strength."

"i'll get jeongguk to murder you. won't i, jeongguk?"

"yup," jeongguk said distractedly from where he was looking at various photos with jimin. "hey, this is you with yoongi-hyung in high school, right?"

"oh, that's an awesome photo of us! he had his senior concert that night, i snuck backstage after the show to take that picture with him," seokjin smiled fondly as he put the toaster down on the floor, sitting down to pull a pile of stacked photos towards him. "jeongguk, this one's from our first date!"

jeongguk leaned on seokjin's broad shoulder. "oh god, look how awkward i was. how did you like me?"

"easily," jin said as he kissed jeongguk's cheek. taehyung made an obnoxious retching noise. jimin giggled. "you know, maybe this whole spider-man gig's gone to your head. you're no different to your whole superhero persona nowadays."

jeongguk scoffed. "impossible. i am a very different person when the mask is on."

"hey, jeongguk?" jimin asked, "i never really thought about it before, but you are different when the mask is on. you're actually funny! and polite!" jeongguk poked his tongue at jimin. 

"oh! jimin's right! you're so polite as spider-man! don't think i didn't notice you saying yoongi-hyung. you never call me hyung anymore!" seokjin said.

"nor me," jimin unhelpfully supplied.

"or me," taehyung said as well.

"you all suck. i hate you all. i have saved your asses how many times? and i get what- this rudeness?" jeongguk pouted. he couldn't keep up the fake hurt though, and grinned. he looked through more of the photos now haphazardly spread around him. "yo! check this one out! it's when kim labs opened!"

"huh, look at that! we all look so happy!" taehyung cooed. he pointed at a red blur in the corner of the photo, behind where jimin, taehyung and jin were standing in front of the kim laboratories building. "and there's jeongguk, off to save the city."

"jin-hyung, you look so pissed off. it was your special day, opening your own research lab!" jimin pointed out, and seokjin frowned.

"because i wanted a nice photo with all of us in it, but jeongguk had to run off. he still owes us a decent group photo from that," seokjin said, and jeongguk smiled.

his phone suddenly buzzed, and he knew what that meant. 

so did seokjin. "look, he's leaving us again! skipping out on all these nice memories! gah, jeonggukkie, you're an asshole!"

"what is it?" taehyung asked, and jeongguk checked the bulletin. 

"some bank robbery- a guy tried to rob it but freaked out and took hostages," he replied, pulling off his sweater and pants to reveal his spider-man suit underneath. jimin wolf-whistled, and he glared. "i'll be back soon, babe."

"stay safe, gukkie," seokjin said, standing up to give jeongguk a kiss before the younger put his mask on, opened the window, and swung away. 

"you guys are so gross," jimin commented idly, still looking through the photos strewn across the floor. 

**\--**

"hey!" jeongguk called as he landed deftly in front of a man in a balaclava. the man jumped and pointed a pistol at jeongguk, who slowly raised his hands.

"where'd you come from, huh?" the man asked roughly, a strong queens accent evident in his voice. jeongguk noted that the hand holding the pistol was shaking. 

"i got in through the ceiling grates. look, i don't wanna hurt you, buddy. i heard you freaked out when the cops showed up- you don't really wanna be doing this, right?" jeongguk said calmly. he directed an open palm towards the crook. "just give me the gun."

"you don't know what i did! you don't know what it's like! i can't afford nothin', man!" the crook yelled, gesturing at jeongguk with the gun. "i got a little girl, man, i can't go to jail!"

"okay, i'll let the cops know. but you gotta co-operate with me, buddy. i can only guarantee you get off lightly if you behave," jeongguk replied. he jerked his head at the hostages, about ten people in a huddled group. one whimpered. "these guys have to be let go."

"nah, man, i don't trust you!" the crook yelled suddenly, pointing the pistol. one lady screamed. "o-one more move, and i shoot one of 'em, i don't care who!"

"hey! buddy! it's gonna be okay! look, hey, you're from queens, right? so am i!" jeongguk said hurriedly, trying to distract the gunman. "have you ever had, uh, the meatlover's sandwich from gino's? you know, the bodega next to the train station?"

the gunman seemed confused, cocking his head. "the one where the guy was also a barber?"

"yeah! the meatlover's is great there, man! and it's cheap! dude, i used to get it all the time, with extra cheese!" jeongguk said, spreading his palms in an attempt to be opening and inviting. 

"nah, i like the chicken sub," the gunman said, lowering the gun, "my girl, abby, she likes the marinara, she- hey! wait a minute! you're just distractin' me!"

he suddenly raised the gun and aimed it straight at jeongguk. 

"whoa, whoa! hey! calm down!" jeongguk yelled, stepping back. "don't you want abby to have the chicken sub again? you gotta think of her, man!"

"i am thinkin' of her!" the crook roared. "i gotta do this for her! otherwise we don't got nothin', man! we're gonna lose our house, and she can't go to her mother's! i can't lose her!"

"okay, i get it, man, i get it! i can help you out! i know a guy- he can set you up with a job, a decent job, just as a cleaner, but it's still a job, right? just during the day, while your girl's at school, so you guys don't miss out on time with each other, yeah? trust me, i can set you up!" jeongguk reasoned, and the man seemed to consider it for a moment, before letting out a huge sob and falling on his knees to the ground. 

"i wanna be a good father, man, i just want my girl to be happy," he moaned, and jeongguk walked up to him and crouched next to him, putting an arm on his back. 

"it's okay, she'll be happy. you care so much for her, yeah? you're a great dad," jeongguk said, a crack in his voice. "i'm gonna let the people go and talk to the police, okay? i'll make sure you get a better life for your daughter."

the crook nodded weakly. 

jeongguk sighed as he stood up and dusted off his knees. he walked over to the group of hostages. "come on, don't make a fuss. be civil, everyone."

one man cheered. "yeah! spider-man!"

"whoa, hey, calm down, man, you can thank me later. just be nice now, alright?" jeongguk said. he led them outside of the bank, where a squadron of police were waiting. 

**\--**

"we're reporting to you live, in front of the bank hostage situation, where i am now talking to spider-man," the newsreporter said, and jin sighed in relief.

"the police didn't make an arrest, he must have pulled some strings," jimin said, photos tossed aside as he stared diligently at the television that he and taehyung had hurriedly fished out of its box and set up to watch the news. 

"i wonder what happened?" taehyung asked, and jin whacked him to make him shut up.

jeongguk- spider-man- was talking into the microphone handed to him by the newsreporter. "the guy who held all these people hostage was just an honest father, wanting to make life better for his daughter. he just got desperate- so i made a deal with him. if he never did crime again, i'd let him go to get a job," he was saying. "we didn't fight, didn't even get close to it. we just talked. y'know, there's a moral here..."

"oh god," taehyng groaned, "him and his morals."

"shut up, tae," jin hissed.

"... you should never do crime if you can do better. if there's a way out of whatever dark hole you're in, you take that way out, if it isn't crime. otherwise, you could end up in more trouble than before. let this be a lesson to you as well, kids, that sometimes violence isn't the answer! a lot of these situations can be solved by just talking! smoothing everything out!" jeongguk continued, and jin cringed.

"god, he really is awful," he said, and jimin nodded. 

"yes he is! why do you date him?" he asked exasperatedly.

"why are you friends with him?" jin countered. jimin shrugged.

"good point," he said. 

"... i would like to dedicate this to someone very close to me, 'cause without him, maybe i would have turned to a dark place a while ago." jeongguk was still talking. jin, jimin and taehyung all groaned at once. "you know, there's a moral here, too! trust your friends, and take their advice! if you're in a dark place, go to your friends for help!"

"turn it off!" jimin yelled, and taehyung dove for the remote to turn the television screen to black. "he won't stop with the morals, will he?"

**\--**

"well, it was lovely talking to you, spider-man!" the newsreporter said, her smile a lot more strained than it was at the start of their interview. "we look forward to your next rescue!"

"stay safe, new york!" jeongguk called as he webbed up to the top of the nearest building. he sighed happily, and nodded to himself. "that was a good one."

"jeongguk, you have a call incoming," his suit lady said, "from aunt may."

"answer call," he replied. "hey may!"

"jeongguk, you are the worst human being to ever walk this planet," the sharp voice of aunt may filled his earpiece. "that was horrible! you went on about lessons and morals for five whole minutes!"

"whoa, whoa, no i didn't, spider-man did!" jeongguk hastily blurted out, his eyes widening. 

may scoffed. "cut the crap, young man. i know."

"what? how?!" jeongguk cried. 

"seokjin let it slip, like, a year ago," may replied happily. jeongguk gasped.

"he what?! and he never- he didn't tell me? you've known for a year?"

"it explains all the sneaking out, all the bruises, all the shitty lies. you're horrible at lying, gukkie," aunt may said, but there was still a strong note of affection in her voice. 

"i- what?" jeongguk was speechless. 

"anyway, good job today. ben would be proud. with great power comes-"

"great responsibility, yeah. thanks may," jeongguk replied.

a silence followed.

"gukkie?" aunt may asked tentatively. "you really did a good job. i'm proud of you."

then she hung up.

jeongguk stared off at police cars and newscasters driving away from the bank, and pedestrian traffic returning to normal. he figured that since he was already in the suit, he may as well do some spider-man duty.

three cats up trees, five old ladies needing directions, two seven-eleven robberies and five hours later, jeongguk was swinging back to his new apartment. it was weird, trying to navigate the streets of new york once more to unfamiliar territory. he sighed as he found the right building. jin had stuck a spider-man sticker in the corner of a window. he could see that the living room was somewhat set up, with the couch built and tv mounted on the wall. the window he had leapt out of was still open, so he landed softly on the wall and crept in, pulling off his mask.

"honey, i'm ho- oomph!" he was cut off as seokjin kissed him deeply. 

"you're a terrible human being, spider-man. i love you," seokjin purred once he and jeongguk had split. 

"i love you too, you equally as awful person," jeongguk replied easily before kissing jin again.

"you still owe me hotpot. let's go out for dinner."


End file.
